FACTBOX: Foreign policy quotes from presidential debate

(Reuters) - Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama on Friday took part in the first of three debates that could help determine the winner of the U.S. presidential election on November 4.

Here are some quotes from the foreign policy portion of the debate, which was held in Oxford, Mississippi:

IRAQ

*Obama

"I stood up and opposed this war, at a time when it was politically risky to do so, because I said that not only did we not know how much it was going to cost, what our exit strategy might be, how it would affect our relationships around the world and whether our intelligence was sound but also because we hadn't finished the job in Afghanistan.

"The first question is whether we should have gone into this war in the first place."

* McCain

"I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear, that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict. Our initial military success, we went into Baghdad and everybody celebrating, and then the war was very badly mishandled."

AFGHANISTAN

* Obama

"We have seen Afghanistan worsen, deteriorate. We need more troops there. We need more resources there."

* McCain

"I won't repeat the mistake that I regret enormously, and that is after we were able to help the Afghan freedom fighters and drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, we basically washed our hands of the region. We can't ignore those lessons of history."

PAKISTAN

* Obama

"With the strategy that's been pursued ... for 10 years we coddled Musharraf; we alienated the Pakistani population because we were anti-democratic; we had a 20th century mind-set that basically said, well, you know, he may be a dictator, but he's our dictator; and as a consequence, we lost legitimacy in Pakistan."